


the scent of spilled oil

by mousselinegateau



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousselinegateau/pseuds/mousselinegateau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I listened outside your cell door every night before I sent you back to Eddis." This is one of those nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the scent of spilled oil

His voice is a bare thread of sound in the darkness. “ _Oxe harbrea sacrus vas dragga onus savonus Sophos at ere…oxe harbrea sacrus vas dragga onus savonus Sophos at ere…_ ”

She stands outside his cell, dressed in an evening gown of royal blue embroidered with Attolian lilies, the rubies in her coronet glimmering in the flickering torchlight. She’s not sure why she refused the sage-green gown she wore two evenings previous. She regrets snapping at Chloe for offering it; the poor girl knew only that it was a gown she favored, knew as all her attendants did that she cared very little if she wore the same gown several times in a week.

She’s not sure why she’s standing outside his cell, but she knows that she does not want to examine further what compelled her to leave dinner halfway through and make her way down the broad, shallow steps into the dark shadows of her prison, past the cells of the many, many people she’s imprisoned and tortured and broken. She can imagine all too well what her first husband would have said about her standing outside the cell of a feverish boy, listening to him plead in archaic.

His voice is soft and weak, like the aftermath of a violet storm that has spent itself too quickly, stumbling over the words of the ceremonial plea in a desperate litany. Faith always returns in our most desperate moments, she thinks to herself, because it is the only way we can convince ourselves that things will improve.

(She already knows that they never do.)

She hears him take a long, shuddering breath, and then for a moment there’s silence. She wonders if he will begin weeping again, as he wept the entire night before. She has had the sound of his sobs in her mind the entire day, his choked breaths drowning out the sycophancy of her barons. Then he begins speaking again, his voice thinned with pain, and the words echo in the empty recesses of the hall.

_We invoke the Great Goddess in our hour of need for her wisdom and her love._

(In the empty recesses of her heart).

It’s harder for her to remember that he’s the Thief of Eddis when he sounds like a boy in unbearable pain, barely conscious and praying to the gods for a rescue that she knows will never come. She knows now, with chilling certainty, that she has indeed exacted the perfect revenge. She has broken the Thief, and through him she will break Eddis, but it is harder for her to remember why this matters. It is harder to remember that he stole the Gift from under her nose, for his queen, the one he serves out of love; harder to remember that he’s been leaving her notes under her plate, jewelry on her dressing table, and once, the dried petals of an Attolian lily beneath her pillow, so that she woke with its sweet fragrance lingering in the air like a promise.

It’s harder for her to equate this boy with the one who refused to serve her, who looked at her with that mocking gleam of impudence, whose triumphant smile suddenly made her feel vulnerable, as if the rubies that gleamed in her coronet were glass once more. He made her feel as if she was the palest imitation of the queen she sought to be, as if she was slipping back into the shadows she strove so hard to escape. She thought it was impossible that she would ever feel that way again, but of course he manages it.

( _You are more beautiful, but she is more_ kind.)

Her attention is drawn back to him when his voice suddenly changes. He appears to have finally run out of the strength to force the archaic from his lips. He’s whispering to himself now, so softly that she can only just hear the murmur of his voice. She moves closer to the railing, about to lean her forehead against the metal railing for a closer look, but then remembers that she’s standing in her own prison and pulls away.

(She rubs her fingertips together for blood that has long been washed away.)

He’s leaning against the wall of the cell, his head resting against the grimy surface, knees drawn awkwardly up to his chest. What remains of his right arm is cradled to his chest. He’s taken off his shirt, dirty and worn rag as it was, and she can see the sweat beading on his chest, gleaming even in the near-darkness. He’s shivering, and she looks about the cell to see where he’s put the shirt. It occurs to her that perhaps one of the gaolers has taken it, and her fingers tighten around the railing.

She finally spots it bunched around the stump of his arm. The shirt was far too large for him to begin with, and with the fabric wound around his wrist, it almost looks as if he’s not missing a hand at all. She clears her throat, because dust has settled there, making it feel unbearably tight.

He turns toward the sound, towards her, and for a moment she’s utterly still. Then she realizes that his gaze is unseeing, his over-bright eyes too feverish to see anything but nightmares.

(Which, she supposed, she is.)

Now that he’s facing her, it’s easier to hear what he’s saying.

_Please. Please. Please._

She remembers how he begged for anything other than the revenge she designed for him. She designed it for the Thief of Eddis, and it gave her no small measure of vindicated pleasure when she remembered the ancient punishment for thieves in Attolia. But when the guard brought the sword down on his shaking arm, when he jerked against the strap, his eyes closed and lips twisted from the pain, he looked so desperately _young_.

 _Please_ , he said in the end, dark hair falling about a face pale with fear. Just _please_.

(He hadn’t screamed aloud. He hadn’t made a sound.)

She stays outside his cell until, at last, he falls asleep. He sleeps curled onto one side, his chest rising an infinitesimal amount with each ragged breath. He shifts in his sleep, jostling the arm cradled to his chest. He whimpers softly, and for a moment she herself struggles to breath. She fights desperately for breath, then smoothes the folds of her gown and forces herself to turn away. She walks in even steps down the hall of the prison, back up the stairs, across the moonlit courtyard into the palace. She walks back to her sleeping chamber, where Phresine is waiting with a brush, a goblet of heated wine, and an unspoken admonishment in her eyes.

She doesn’t sleep that night. He’s stolen that from her too, even with only one hand.

_What can you steal for me, Thief?_

_Anything. I can steal anything._

(She wonders what else he’s stolen from her, and when she will notice its loss.)


End file.
